At last, here's a submission for cricket season 2007, which is officially the wettest English cricket season ever!

Having half of the games washed out and the remaining half mostly weather-affected was extremely frustrating. Even with this, the Wanderers team at Bath cricket club managed to win our league and play in the national final. Even though we lost in the 2nd last over, the match was certainly the highlight of the season.

Some photos from a handful of the matches are in the photo gallery.

Went over to Ireland during the August bank holiday weekend to meet my friend, Julie. We started off in Dublin, went up to Newgrange, drove down to Cork and across to the SE corner, all in a weekend. Photos are in the gallery.

Just had a long weekend of white water sports in Slovenia. This is where the Soca River is, an excellent mixture of grade 3-5 rapids for a range of activities. Since it's a glacial river, it's absolutely freezing which is a good reason not to fall in.

We had a kiwi guide - you can't get away from Antipodeans in Europe!

First-up was a session of night kayaking with an amazing view of the stars. A nice sedated introduction to the trip.

Next was a morning whitewater kayak session which brought back memories of the Avon Descent as we navigated a series of rapids. The more difficult grade 4-5 rapids were negotiated in a white water raft.

A canyoning session took a few hours and the highlight was abseiling a 30-metre high waterfall which finished with falling 10 metres off the end of the rope into the freezing rock pool below.

The scariest/most exciting part of the trip was "hydrospeeding". This is a combination of body-boarding and kayaking, with a modified body board and flippers. So basically people go down huge rapids head-first through large stoppers and attempting to avoid the whirlpools. We had a couple of guides in kayaks showing us the correct lines through the rapids. Our route was through deep canyon for a few hours and there was no exit routes so once we started we had to continue all the way through some very exciting rapids.

A few photos from the trip are in the elly.net.au gallery.

Slovenia has become more accessible after becoming more politically stable over the past few years and I can thoroughly recommend it. Almost as good as New Zealand!

We've been blessed with great weather over Easter, so I went with the Marylebone Mountaineering Club on a trip to Cornwall. We camped out of a site near St Ives, and spent every day in a different location climbing huge cliffs with great views across the ocean. To top off the great weather, the tides worked in well with our climbing plans. Quite a few climbs are only accessible by abseiling into them at low tide, which coincided with about lunchtime each day over the easter break.

It's a litte bit intimidating when you're hanging on with your fingernails as the waves are crashing into the rocks right below, but it makes it even more exhilerating when you reach the top! We did quite a few multi-pitch climbs and rewarded ourselves with lots of nice Cornish pasties!

A few photos are in the Gallery.

Sailing's always been fun, and I've been lucky to be out a number of times on my parents' 38-foot yacht, Dusky Dolphin. But now I'm living in England it's a little bit difficult to get out on the water on a regular basis.

After entering a newspaper competition to win a free berth in the Clipper Race across the Atlantic, a few entrants were offered a free sail out of Portsmouth across the Solent to the Isle of Wight. Being early Spring, it was somewhat chilly so we were all supplied with full oilskins as standard kit to wear in the bitter Atlantic winds. This is slightly different than the usual boardshorts that can be worn sailing out of Fremantle!

The Clipper yachts are dedicated ocean-racing boats, weighing around 37 tonnes. It's amazing how much power their huge sails generate, and we had a couple of reefs in the main to deal with the 20-25-knot winds. We were maintaining around 12 knots sailing almost into the wind! Needless to say, the sails also were very hard work to pull up and down the mast.

The Clipper race offers amateur sailors the opportunity to fully train up and sail around the world as part of a racing crew. It also includes a stop in Fremantle. So the opportunity exists to sail from England to Fremantle. That could be quite something, sailing into Fremantle harbour having crossed the Atlantic, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Indian ocean. Something to think about!

All in all, it was a great day out. Interesting to see how to approach sailing in the UK, and to see how people cope with the cold conditions. As ever, it's all about having the correct equipment and it makes all the difference.

I'm currently in the process of migrating my web host provider which means that this site is being updated as I type. Hopefully it won't take too long, and it'll be bigger and better soon.

Watch this space!

Belinda and I spent 5 days in Sicily after Claire's wedding. We flew into Catania on the east coast, and drove our way across the island to its capital, Palmero. The mafia has a distinct influence over Sicilly but fortunately we didn't bump into anyone carrying machine guns in violin cases.

Our hostel in Catania had a restaurant underneath which was in a lava tube - a bizarre setting! Catania had clearly been wiped out a number of times by various eruptions of Mt Etna which dominates the eastern side of Sicilly.

We drove partway up Mt Etna to find a ski field and relatively fresh lava flow. It's about 3,000m high so there was plenty of snow left over from winter but due to a lack of equipment we couldn't climb the mountain. It's probably not the best idea to climb an active volcano without an experienced guide, but some of my geologist friends would be keen to go! We stayed in a mountain lodge overlooking Mt Etna before driving across the island to Palmero.

Part of the drive offered views out to the Aolean Islands, a group of active volcano islands to the north of Sicily. Plus great views of the Mediterranean Sea in brilliant sunshine, a welcome relief at the end of the northern winter.

The last couple of days were spent in Palermo. Interestingly, this used to the the Norman capital of Europe about 1,000 years ago. Sicily's position and status as largest island in the Mediterranean meant that it has had influences from a number of civilisations including Egyptian, Roman, Greek and North African. The culture of the city is very unique, and quite different from the rest of Europe. This topped with great italian food meant a nice holiday away

Some photos are in the gallery.

One of my best friends, Claire, married Graham Burt in Perth on the Bell tower on 17th February.

Since she's Australian and he's English, they had two installments of their wedding - there was a celebratory dinner held at Le Manoir in Oxfordshire the following week, on the 24th February. Several members of Claire's family made the trip over to England from Perth, and mainly English people were at the reception.

Of course there was an Australian contingent at the reception and it was a special time to be shared by all. Perfectly organised, and 5 courses of dinner went down very well.

Claire being Claire looked absolutely stunning, and it was fabulous to see her and Graham happily married.

A few pictures are in the Photo Gallery.

Congratulations Claire and Graham!!

India has called for another visit.

This time, it was for a work trip. We are considering our options with a handful of outsourcing companies at various locations throughout India. We started in Delhi, drove to Jaipur for a couple of days. Then, it was off to Hyderabad and then onto Bangalore before heading back to London. We covered about 2,000 km in 6 days! Photos are in the gallery.

Apparently it is "wedding month" according to the Hindu calendar. Therefore as we drove through Jaipur there were weddings everywhere! We were invited to an employee''s sister''s wedding. We followed directions and were welcomed into a huge courtyard full of people we''d never met before. The relatives introduced themselves. Everything was going well until we realised we were in the wrong wedding! The "real" wedding was actually the one next door. Se we headed in there and were welcomed by the wedding party who were actually expecting us.

An afternoon of siteseeing around Jaipur was great - we went up to the Hawa Mahal Palace, which is about 500 years old overlooking the city of Jaipur on a large hill. This was where parts of a James Bond movie were shot back in the 80''s. We were given a taste of Bollywood film-making as there was a huge gathering of Bollywood starts and dancers shooting a new movie. There were hundreds of onlookers as we made our way though to the main part of the Hawa Mahal Palace, where the King kept his 12 wives.

Then it was on to Hyderabad and only a day of meetings there, so no siteseeing. And finally, Bangalore, which is the current IT capital of India. Both these cities are very different to Delhi and Jaipur, and the western influence of IT outsourcing can be seen here everywhere.

This was a whirlwind trip to India, which has made a nice relief from the UK winter. It''s great to visit this country - India provides amazing vibrant lifestyles and contrasts which are always "in your face". It''s full-on, but it puts life in perspective.

Photos are in the gallery

So what's been happening so far this year? I've been slow to update my blog, for a start. Anyway, here's some highlights:

• Generally settling in London, where there's so much to do all the time. A little bit more lively here than in Cheltenham :-)
• We won the ashes 5-0!
• There are have been a couple of dumps of snow, even in London! Amazing what a little bit of white can do to transform the surroundings. Snow photos are here. Always nice siteseeing on the way to work!
• A weekend trip to see an Aussie mate in Leeds, with lots of mountain biking and climbing. Some photos are in the gallery.
• OMG, I'm now 30!! (just thought I'd slip that in)
• I've been picked for Somerset county cricket team :-)

That's about it for now!